1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer, a printing method and a printing program having an electronic-mail function, and a storage medium storing the printing program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printers operating in a network environment have been proposed. Such printers can be subjected to remote control via the network, so that printing, various printer settings, and acquisition of printer information can be performed from a location separated from the location where the printer is installed, such as a host computer or the like.
Such conventional printers have the function of transmitting/receiving an electronic mail (hereinafter also abbreviated as a “mail”). In such printers, a sentence to be transmitted is stored in advance in a ROM (read-only memory).
The electronic mail stored in the ROM is transmitted in accordance with conditions set for each printer.
In a conventional printer operating in a local area network (hereinafter abbreviated as a “LAN”), a fire wall is generally provided between the LAN and an external network in order to improve security. The external network is a network connected to a port different from the port of a router to which the printer is connected.
Although the printer connected to the LAN can transmit/receive an electronic mail to/from the external network, access using telnet, FTP (file transfer protocol), or the like is in most cases prohibited by the fire wall. Accordingly, the range of remote control for the conventional printer with such improved security is limited to control from a host computer within the LAN.
It is also possible to directly control a printer from an external network by changing the setting of a fire wall. In such a case, however, access to the printer may be a security hole, resulting in degradation in security for the overall network. Hence, such an approach is unrealistic.
Thus, in the conventional printer operating in a network, it is difficult to improve security while allowing access from an external network. As described above, the conventional printer has the function of transmitting/receiving an electronic mail to/from an internal network or an external network. However, only a document stored in a ROM is transmitted, and it is impossible to change the contents of the document in accordance with a destination of the electronic mail. Hence, it is inconvenient to use such a printer.